Romance Classics (138 page)

She laughed a little, softly, a laugh that was a caress.

“I haven’t resigned, my darling. One doesn’t ‘resign’ from the Army!” she reminded him.

“Well, then, now that you have your discharge—”

“I haven’t,” she interrupted quickly. “I have sixty days’
leave and after that I report for a check-up. For reassignment if I pass the physical; for a discharge if I can’t.”

His arms tightened anxiously about her.

“You were wounded?” he asked sharply.

“No, of course not. I’d have written you, or had someone write,” she comforted him swiftly. “I’ve been ill—fever—nothing too serious. I’ll shake it off and pick up a few pounds and be in the pink by the time my leave is up.”

She waited a moment, holding her breath. Here, if ever was the time for him to say, Don’t you suppose I want to marry you, Cathy? Ask for your discharge and we’ll be married. But he didn’t say it. There was a tiny, taut silence, as though he sensed what she was thinking and because he could not—
dared
not?—say that, he kissed her again.

“Well, anyway,” he said roughly, “you’re home now and a lot can happen in sixty days. Cathy, my dearest, have you any possible idea how much I love you?”

Cathy put down the small, uneasy fear in her heart that seemed, somehow, disloyal, and said eagerly, “Tell me about it!”

But even as he held her close and kissed her and whispered into her ear all the lovely things she had so long dreamed of hearing him say, that little uneasy questioning feeling persisted.

Bill shook her ever so gently after a while and laughed down at her tenderly.

“I must have some pretty high-powered competition,” he teased. “All those dashing pilots and so on.”

“You wouldn’t have had any competition if all the best-looking men in the world had been standing in line, suing for my heart and hand,” she told him with a small, shaky laugh. And contentment flowed into her heart beneath the hard, eager pressure of his kiss for which she had hungered so long.

Everything was going to be all right!
Going
to be? She moved a little closer to him—everything
was
all right. She adored Bill, he loved her, and they would be married. She and Bill were grown up and there was nothing Mrs. Kendall or anyone else could do to prevent their marriage. Nothing! And she did not realize the over-emphasis of her thought that hinted at a fear buried deep in her mind.

Cathy awoke to find her pretty room flooded with sunlight and was startled to see that the clock on the dresser pointed to five minutes past ten. She stretched luxuriously, then hopped out of bed, to stand for a moment at the window, looking out into the glorious spring morning, before she hurried into the bath for a shower. She got into slacks and a shirt and brushed her hair back from her forehead and tied a ribbon about it.

When she entered the kitchen, Maggie was just coming in from the garden with a pan of new peas.

“Well, now, you look like you had a good sleep,” said Maggie happily.

“I did. Oh, it was glorious,” said Cathy happily. “Only you shouldn’t have let me sleep so late.”

They were settling comfortably at the table, Maggie with a cup of coffee, Cathy with what she swore was enough breakfast for a day laborer before her, when the telephone rang sharply.

Maggie listened and looked surprised.

“Darn it, that’s our ring,” she said.

It rang again—three short sharp rings—and Maggie went into the hall. A moment later she came back and said briskly, “It’s for you, but they wouldn’t give a name. I don’t know who it is.”

“Well, don’t look so surprised. I
do
have a friend or two here, you know,” Cathy assured her loftily and went out into the hall.

A cool voice said, “Miss Layne? Just a moment, please. Mrs. Kendall wants to speak to you.”

Cathy stood quite still, shaken, until a carefully cultured, determinedly musical voice said, “Miss Layne! How nice you’re back. I’m sure you must have had some very exciting adventures. I do want to hear about them. Shall we say tea
this afternoon? At four-thirty, I think. That will give us a chance for a bit of a talk.”

“That would be very nice, Mrs. Kendall,” said Cathy when she had a chance to speak.

“Then I shall expect you at four-thirty,” said Mrs. Kendall and the telephone clicked down.

Cathy stood for a moment eying the telephone with frank suspicion before she went back to the kitchen.

Maggie looked up at her and rose to pour fresh coffee.

“So the Dowager Queen’s going into action—but fast,” she commented dryly.

“But why? I mean, I’ve never been there to tea before. Mrs. Kendall’s never given me a second glance,” said Cathy, uneasy even while she admitted that such a feeling was absurd.

“Well, maybe she never knew before that Bill’s intentions toward you were strictly matrimonial,” observed Maggie tartly.

Cathy’s eyes widened a little.

“You think maybe Bill told her that he wanted to marry ine?” she wondered aloud.

“I think it’s highly likely, don’t you?” asked Maggie, and grinned impishly. “What the heck? Bill’s twenty-eight, and you’re twenty-four. I’d say there was nobody could stop you if your mind was made up.”

Cathy laughed.

“Oh, she can’t stop us, of course.” She dismissed the thought. “It’s only that—well, she
has
been good to Bill—”

“Oh, she’s nuts about Bill, of course,” admitted Maggie. “Though I’d think some of it was conscience. After all, the Kendall money is only hers by marriage; she wasn’t born a Kendall, much as she’d like everybody to believe she was. I’ve known her since we were kids together, and I’ve never known her to do a warmhearted, generous thing in her life—unless she could get double value for it in return.”

She rose to clear the table, pausing to say, “What have you got to wear this afternoon that will knock her eye out?”

Cathy laughed. “Nothing, I’m afraid—unless you think my dress uniform might do it.”

Maggie hesitated. “Umm—no, I think you’d better be a civilian. I guess we’d better go shopping. There’s a bit of money I’ve put by for you out of the checks you’ve been,
sending home—there’s about six hundred dollars of it. Splurge the whole business if you have to, because I’ve got my heart set on you knocking her loopy when you walk in!”

“Oh, now, really, Maggie—” protested Cathy.

“Look, chick, I know what I’m talking about,” said Maggie firmly. “There’s just one thing that will impress Edith: that’s for you to look like something straight out of
Vogue
, and to be just as haughty and insulting as you can be. Come on, let’s get going.”

At four-thirty Maggie stopped the Betsy-Bug at the entrance to the impressive yellow-brick house and Cathy got out.

“I’d drive you up to the door,” explained Maggie, “only the Betsy-Bug might spoil the impression of that suit. You look like a million dollars. I’ll pick you up here in about an hour. Knowing Edith, I imagine an hour will be as much as you can take!”

Cathy laughed and went through the entrance gates and along the drive. Her suit was a soft sage-green, deftly cut and smoothly fitting. There was a narrow band of mink at the collar and a matching touch of mink on the tiny hat that was of a shade darker green. Lizard-skin pumps, a large flat bag of lizard skin, and supple white doeskin gloves completed the costume.

Cathy braced herself as she rang the bell, and a maid in a black and white uniform showed her into a long, handsome room, with windows that looked out over the rigidly formal garden, riotous now with spring blossoms. The room had been decorated by a professional hand and it gave one the feeling that nothing must be changed, not so much as the line made by a chair set in place.

Cathy had time to scrutinize the Kendall drawing room thoroughly before she heard the sound of footsteps and Mrs. Kendall’s voice in the hall. Then that lady came rustling in; a big woman, rigidly corseted, clad in a steel-gray dress that was severely cut in the hope of minimizing her weight. Her hair was steel-gray, too, swept up from her face in a fashionable, but unbecoming coiffure in which there were bluish lights denoting a very recent “blueing rinse.”

“Good afternoon, Miss Layne,” she greeted Cathy formally. “So nice to see you.” She waved Cathy to a seat and
settled herself in a straight-backed arm chair that had something of the appearance of a throne.

“I must confess,” she said with a light, artificial laugh, “that when Bill told me you were back, and seemed so excited, I had some little difficulty in placing you!”

“He tells me you have been away for some time,” said Mrs. Kendall politely, but her eyes were cold and watchful.

“I’ve been overseas—in Vietnam,” said Cathy.

“Oh—you were a Wae?”

“I was—and am—an army nurse.”

“Oh, then you haven’t been released?”

“No,” answered Cathy, and was quite certain that Mrs. Kendall looked relieved. “I am on leave.”

“I’m sure you are enjoying it—renewing old friendships, seeing your home town. I daresay it looks quite changed since you went away; there are so many new industries, new people. Cypressville is becoming quite important,” said Mrs. Kendall chattily. “I feel that the Kendall estate has good reason to be proud of having done so much for Cypressville.”

“And then, of course, Cypressville has done a great deal for the Kendall estate,” said Cathy quietly.

Mrs. Kendall’s eyes flashed, but whatever she had meant to say was interrupted by the appearance of the maid, bearing with the exaggerated care that told she was unfamiliar with it, a handsome silver tea service which she placed on a low table beside Mrs. Kendall.

When the maid had gone, Mrs. Kendall poured tea and passed tiny thin sandwiches and when the amenities had been dispensed with, she said lightly:

“Bill seems to think a good deal of you, Miss Layne.”

Cathy put down her teacup and looked straight at Mrs. Kendall.

“Bill doesn’t just ‘think a good deal of me,’ Mrs. Kendall. Bill loves me—and I love him.”

For a moment there was silence in the room. Outside, Cathy could hear the hum of a power lawn mower; from the kitchen, as a door opened, there was a murmur of voices that was stilled when the door swung shut.

But neither Cathy nor Mrs. Kendall was aware of the sounds. They were staring straight at each other, the naked sword of enmity drawn between them, two women suddenly hating each other because of the man they both loved.

Mrs. Kendall laughed thinly and poured fresh tea into her cup, but her hand shook ever so slightly.

“My dear Miss Layne,” her tone was insolently derisive, “are you trying to tell me you have any fantastic idea that Bill has been in love with you all the time you’ve been gone?”

“And for a long time before I left, Mrs. Kendall,” said Cathy steadily.

Mrs. Kendall’s mouth thinned.

“And I suppose you hope to inveigle him into marrying you?”

“I don’t think it will be necessary to ‘inveigle’ him—since he wants to marry me. I’ve told you that we love each other,” Cathy reminded her.

“Bill will never marry you while I live,” said Mrs. Kendall sharply.

“Oh, come now, Mrs. Kendall, let’s not get melodramatic and absurd. After all, Bill is twenty-eight. Surely you don’t expect to control his whole life—”

“I control something that means a great deal to Bill,” said Mrs. Kendall thinly. “I control the Kendall estate—an estate that is close to a million dollars—and Bill wants very much to inherit it. Which, of course, he will—under certain circumstances.”

“One of which is that he remain unmarried and devote his entire life to the whims of a selfish, domineering woman!” Cathy flashed recklessly.

“Oh, no, I have no objection to Bill’s marrying—when he finds a suitable wife!” said Mrs. Kendall, and her tone was an insult.

“Which, of course, means that you do not consider me suitable,” Cathy finished for her.

“Naturally not. You are a girl from nowhere—with no background, no social standing. A girl who has been off mixing herself in all sorts of unpleasantnesses. No doubt there was much lowering of—er—moral standards where you were.”

“I was in a war, Mrs. Kendall. Life was not very dainty, I’m afraid,” said Cathy hotly. “But my morals are quite as good as they ever were.”

“Which isn’t saying
too
much, is it?”

“There’s really no point in my sitting here and allowing you to insult me, Mrs. Kendall,” said Cathy when she could
trust her voice. “We are the two women who mean most to Bill. He is genuinely fond of you and deeply grateful to you; for that reason, I would honestly like to be fond of you too. But that’s something you don’t want.”

“Why should I want your liking? You are less than nothing to me,” flashed Mrs. Kendall spitefully.

“And you are the same to me—except that I love Bill and I know it would please him if we could be friends. And I’d do anything I could to please Bill,” said Cathy evenly. “But since that’s impossible, in this instance, I see no reason why this unpleasant scene should be prolonged.”

She walked toward the door, and Mrs. Kendall did not speak. Cathy opened the door and let herself out. For a moment she stood on the steps, her shoulders back, breathing deep of the scented spring air. She felt as though she had come out of some noisome jungle; the big, handsome, chill drawing room had been so impregnated with Mrs. Kendall’s hostility that Cathy felt as though she had been defiled by it.

She went down the walk to the waiting Betsy-Bug, her heart heavy with the thought that Bill must decide between the two women who meant most to him. He couldn’t have both, and knowing his love for her, Cathy had no doubt of his decision. He would choose her, and his aunt and her precious money could do whatever they liked. But the decision would be painful for him, and she was bitterly sorry that it had to be made.

Cathy was in the porch swing that evening when Bill’s sports car stopped at the curb and he came up the walk. She and Maggie had had supper and Maggie had gone next door to take half a freshly baked apple pie to a neighbor who was convalescing from the birth of a fifth child.